Editor's note: A comment from an energy industry spokesman in response to the anti-fracking activists has been added to this story.

Local moms, children and activists delivered several hundred postcards Monday to the three county commissioners before holding a rally on the Boulder County Courthouse lawn, urging the commissioners to extend a fracking moratorium.

About three dozen people attended the rally.

"Our children are among those most impacted," said Micah Parkin, member of 350 Boulder, a local environmental group.

A public hearing is set for Thursday, when the commissioners plan to discuss imposing transportation impact fees on oil and gas companies drilling and operating wells in the county.

"We'll be in listening mode," said Commissioner Cindy Domenico.

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If approved by the commissioners, the new "Oil and Gas Road Deterioration and Roadway Safety Fee" schedule would be incorporated into the Boulder County Land Use Code regulations about oil and gas development that the commissioners adopted in December.

Those land use regulations -- which companies would have to follow when they apply for county permits to drill wells in unincorporated areas -- are now scheduled to take effect June 10.

That's when Boulder County's temporary moratorium on processing new oil and gas drilling applications ends. The time out was adopted in February 2012, extended in April 2012 while the regulations were being written, and extended again in January when the commissioners decided the staff needed additional time to prepare for implementing the new oil and gas regulations.

According to speakers at Monday's rally, the University of Colorado is studying the health impacts of fracking and Boulder County should extend the moratorium until the studies are complete.

Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, a 13-year-old activist from the Earth Guardians youth group, said the county commissioners' decision on extending the moratorium "is choosing for or against our future."

"I've seen what fracking does," he said. "It's not a good thing."

Simon Lomax, Denver-based researcher for industry group Energy In Depth, on Tuesday responded to the anti-fracking activists.

"It's shameful that these activists would use children as props in a political campaign against the oil and gas industry," he wrote in a prepared statement. "This is a desperate and extreme tactic, which they've borrowed from out-of-state lobbying groups, because the facts simply don't support their alarmist claims."

Others at Monday's event urged a permanent ban on fracking, the hydraulic fracturing process of injecting a mixture of chemicals, sand and water to free up underground oil and gas deposits. The commissioners' legal advisers have said that Boulder County doesn't have the authority to enact a permanent prohibition.

In response, speakers at Monday's rally promised to contribute to a legal fund, saying protecting the health of the county's residents is worth the risk of a lawsuit.

"We have to make our governments responsive to us," said Merrily Mazza, an organizer for East Boulder County United.

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